Have You Watched "Avatar" Yet? It's AMAZING!

[Monique]

She used a piston-driven air displacement pipette, not a plastic dropper. My statement still stands. What if you pipetted a 12 M hydrochloric acid solution with the dropper, do you want to risk liquid moving on the outside towards your fingers when you turn it upside down?

 

[cronxeh]

She used a piston-driven air displacement pipette, not a plastic dropper. My statement still stands. What if you pipetted a 12 M hydrochloric acid solution with the dropper, do you want to risk liquid moving on the outside towards your fingers when you turn it upside down?

Nicely said. Besides you can't use plastic pipettes that I was talking about with acid

Don't air displacement pipettes create a vacuum and use single use disposable pipettes? If you tip it over the liquid should stay in one place.

And I found the part of the movie you all referring to. She draws up a sample and then tips over the pipette.

Air Displacement Pipettes - are meant for general use with aqueous solutions.
In air displacement pipettes, a certain volume of air remains between the piston
and the liquid

http://www.pipette.com/Support/GuideToPipetting.pdf

And obviously they had to include the classical warning:

Avoid turning the pipette on its side when there is liquid in the tip. Liquid might
go to the interior of the pipette and contaminate the pipette

 

[Chi Meson]

Oh my god there is a wiki for Avatar? First people become seriously depressed because they want to "live" on pandora, and now there is a wiki. Oh wow.

Of course there is a Wiki about it. Come on. It's rule 35 isn't it?

 

[joelupchurch]

Oh my god there is a wiki for Avatar? First people become seriously depressed because they want to "live" on pandora, and now there is a wiki. Oh wow.

What do you mean a wiki?

http://james-camerons-avatar.wikia.com/wiki/Avatar_Wiki"

http://www.naviblue.com/faq.php?mode=avatar1"

I suspect that Avatar will end up being "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" for IMAX with midnight shows every weekend. Even when it is released on bluray, people are going to still want to see it in 3D.

I also suspect that someone is trying to figure out how to create a 3D MMORPG based on Avatar.

 

[Huckleberry]

Loved the movie. After it ended I wanted to be a blue cat person running around in the trees and riding giant lizards too. The visual effects were astounding, even if the story itself wasn't completely original. Stories evolve from their predecessors. Eventually one grows wings that allow it to fly and everyone says that is a new idea. It is a conglomeration of old ideas in a new arrangement.

Avatar's storyline isn't anything particularly innovative, and someone who favors that aspect of storytelling above others might not value its other qualities as highly. Personally, I like that story. If I like a book I will read it several times because I enjoy the story. It doesn't matter if the names and places have been changed because it is the underlying story that I find appealing, even if there is nothing unexpected. Though I have to say, I would have enjoyed the movie more if the there were some emphasis on the reason why the humans were so predisposed towards violence in obtaining... um, unobtainium. I felt as if I were being directed to be sympathetic towards the Na'Vi and wasn't very appreciative of being compelled to do so. I feel that Cameron had a perfect opportunity to give believable motivation for the human's actions, but chose not to so that they could be more easily portrayed as bloodthirsty brutes. I don't mind the demonization, but the reason was there and it was never shown to the audience except in one or two lines of dialogue. It never showed their desperation; a vital component to their motivation in my opinion. It gave the movie a fairy tail, cartoony feel to it.

What gives this movie its wings is the 3d technology, and a beautiful pair of wings it is. Like all the CGI and camera effects, the 3d technology is a storytelling aid, which Cameron used masterfully. To hear about the movie is like a blind man hearing a description of a butterfly. To watch the movie in 3d is like opening your eyes for the first time and seeing a butterfly. Ultimately, it is eye candy, but it's eye candy that engages the senses in a more satisfactory manner than conventional 2d motion pictures. Rather than a being a crutch for imagination, I see it as a boon similar to when the first motion pictures were released when there was only radio before, or when color pictures replaced black and white. Avatar is like a sculpture among cave paintings. It's coffee flavored ice-cream at Starbucks.

The plot of Avatar isn't what makes Cameron a genius. It was his implementation and of technology. He could have filmed Avatar years ago and it wouldn't have made much of an impact in movies. He spent years having it designed and convincing directors and theaters to make and show movies using the new 3d tech. His average movie is now a mega-blockbuster because of it. I'm impressed, but perhaps I'm easily impressed. Regardless, I appreciate Cameron's effort and I'm anxious to see how the results of his effort will be used in the future.

Also, I think there are to be two more Avatar movies. Hopefully they will fill out where the plot was lacking, but perhaps its too little, too late in that department if Cameron was shooting for an epic.

 

[DaveC426913]

Though I have to say, I would have enjoyed the movie more if the there were some emphasis on the reason why the humans were so predisposed towards violence in obtaining... um, unobtainium.

If they were going to be perfectly accurate, while keeping tongue-in-cheek, it would have been called MacGuffinium^{TM DC 2010} (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacGuffin).

... the specific nature of the MacGuffin is not important to the plot such that anything that serves as a motivation serves its purpose. The MacGuffin can sometimes be ambiguous, completely undefined, generic or left open to interpretation.

Commonly, though not always, the MacGuffin is the central focus of the film in the first act, and later declines in importance as the struggles and motivations of characters play out. Sometimes the MacGuffin is even forgotten by the end of the film.

I feel that Cameron had a perfect opportunity to give believable motivation for the human's actions, but chose not to so that they could be more easily portrayed as bloodthirsty brutes.

I think the agenda here was to keep the motivation as general as possible so that the audience would (hopefully) read into the story their own personal guilty conscience, whether that be destruction of Amazon rainforest, logging in British Columbia or starving Ethiopians.


He did not give the audience enough credit to be able to see a film as an allegory. He chose to teach a moral lesson rather than tell a good story and let the audience take away their own lesson (which is how most classics do it).

 

[Huckleberry]

More is the pity too. That weakness is common in movies, but it is accentuated by the strengths in other areas of Avatar. If I didn't like the movie or appreciate its innovation I wouldn't be concerned. Cameron neglected to take the hobbles off his show horse. So he sits on this fantastic beast while I puzzle over the absurdity of the restraints placed on it.

MacGuffin. I'd never heard that term before. It'd be too much to hope that I never have to see it again, so I'm sure I'll remember it.

 

[Borek]

Fairy tale, but a nice looking one. I don't have an acrophobia, but first scenes with flying ikrans forced me deep into a chair.

 

[mgb_phys]

MacGuffin. I'd never heard that term before. It'd be too much to hope that I never have to see it again, so I'm sure I'll remember it.

It doesn't mean a bad movie - it's pretty much the plot of most Hitchcock movies or the letters-of-transit in Casablanca.

Speaking of which, on the back of the success of Avatar, Sony have decided that we want to see 3D versions of all the classic movies which we have unacountably failed to repurchase on Blueray. So Casablanca 3D coming soon.

 

[MotoH]

I for one enjoy my movies being on a screen. Just because they can doesn't mean they should.

 

[DaveC426913]

It doesn't mean a bad movie - it's pretty much the plot of most Hitchcock movies or the letters-of-transit in Casablanca.

A better example would be the Maltese Falcon. The object of interest has nothing to do with the plot except as a catalyst (i.e: triggers actions but does not participate in the actions).

In Casablanca, the letters of transit had a direct impact on the characters, since they could not leave the country (and thus the film) without them. Their presence, their location and their purpose directly affected most of the cast of characters' actions throughout the film.

But point taken. Many excellent films use a MacGuffin.

 

[Huckleberry]

It doesn't mean a bad movie - it's pretty much the plot of most Hitchcock movies or the letters-of-transit in Casablanca.

Speaking of which, on the back of the success of Avatar, Sony have decided that we want to see 3D versions of all the classic movies which we have unacountably failed to repurchase on Blueray. So Casablanca 3D coming soon.

Not a bad movie at all. I very much enjoyed it. I was just expounding on what I consider to be its most prominent flaw. A MacGuffin as used in Hitchcock movies is used differently in Avatar. An unknown element used to drive a mystery, suspense or horror is one thing. Using the same device to make one faction villianous and another deserving of sympathy is a short-cut to having to actually develop the story. The plot should be driven by character's motivations without external moral bias from the story teller. It reduces the level of believability to that of a fairy tale or scary campfire story. What baffles me most is that it would have been easy to include believable motivation by using the characters to show plot elements that already exist. It would have only taken about 5-10 minutes of time on Earth and the rewriting of a few lines of dialogue to make the human characters a tad less willfully barbaric as a species.

I've never seen Casablanca.

 

[DaveC426913]

I've never seen Casablanca.

I ...



I'm sorry to hear about your condition. Were you blind from birth, or did it come on before you had mastered speech?

 

[ideasrule]

Not a bad movie at all. I very much enjoyed it. I was just expounding on what I consider to be its most prominent flaw. A MacGuffin as used in Hitchcock movies is used differently in Avatar. An unknown element used to drive a mystery, suspense or horror is one thing. Using the same device to make one faction villianous and another deserving of sympathy is a short-cut to having to actually develop the story. The plot should be driven by character's motivations without external moral bias from the story teller. It reduces the level of believability to that of a fairy tale or scary campfire story. What baffles me most is that it would have been easy to include believable motivation by using the characters to show plot elements that already exist. It would have only taken about 5-10 minutes of time on Earth and the rewriting of a few lines of dialogue to make the human characters a tad less willfully barbaric as a species.

I said this before, but I would have liked the movie better if it depicted a desperate struggle for existence instead of a black-and-white story about colonialism. Make unobtanium something that humans need to prevent extinction. Make the tree of life something that the no lifeforms on Pandora can survive without, both physically and emotionally. Get a cute girl on the human side and show her suffering and fighting desperately for the survival of the human race. That would have made for a much more exciting and morally ambiguous story. It's a plot that will keep movie-goers philosophizing for a long time after seeing the movie rather than thinking "oh yeah, it's one of those movies".

 

[ideasrule]

Oh yeah, and one more thing: no mercy on either side of the struggle. That's the way it's been throughout human history, so it's not unrealistic if humans and NaVi are completely barbaric towards each other.

 

[DaveC426913]

I said this before, but I would have liked the movie better if it depicted a desperate struggle for existence instead of a black-and-white story about colonialism. Make unobtanium something that humans need to prevent extinction. Make the tree of life something that the no lifeforms on Pandora can survive without, both physically and emotionally. Get a cute girl on the human side and show her suffering and fighting desperately for the survival of the human race. That would have made for a much more exciting and morally ambiguous story. It's a plot that will keep movie-goers philosophizing for a long time after seeing the movie rather than thinking "oh yeah, it's one of those movies".

I give two thumbs up to this post and every word in it.

 

[joelupchurch]

Fairy tale, but a nice looking one. I don't have an acrophobia, but first scenes with flying ikrans forced me deep into a chair.

I had a similar reaction, but I wasn't surprised, since the first Imax movie I ever saw was "To Fly". For my money, it is worse than actually being on an airplane. The small portholes on airplanes seem to moderate my acrophobia.

I remember in Isaac Asimov's Autobiography, that he mentioned that "To Fly" had him white knuckled.

 

[Huckleberry]

I ...



I'm sorry to hear about your condition. Were you blind from birth, or did it come on before you had mastered speech?

I was hoping someone would question my ignorance. I'm glad it was you. No, I don't think it's blindness exactly, but I may have selective vision. I would likely enjoy that movie as well, but science fiction and fantasy have a special appeal to me. I'll make a point to get around to it now that you've brought it up. Thanks.

Oh yeah, and one more thing: no mercy on either side of the struggle. That's the way it's been throughout human history, so it's not unrealistic if humans and NaVi are completely barbaric towards each other.

Right! I don't have a problem with either race being barbaric. I just want to see why in a manner that is believable. Avatar made humans appear cruel just for the sake of cruelty, without any other driving force to motivate it. They were cast as the antagonists from the moment Jake Sully reached Pandora. Even the way the other marines treated Sully's disability was heartless and unbelievable to anyone who has spent any time around a marine. Had I been shown the plight of humanity then I would have understood. Without it the humans are laughable. The script appears to be written to speak directly to the audience and tell them that one side is good and the other is evil without respecting our ability to draw our own conclusions from the character's actions.

In the movie Starship Troopers the plight of humanity is what we are meant to sympathize with, so the enemy is an alien insectoid race. Kids can squash bugs on the sidewalk and we can all cheer and laugh without intently questioning the morality of our actions against them. Avatar treats humanity like the insects from Starship Troopers. No serious movie would dehumanize the antagonist completely. As barbaric as humanity can sometimes be, that just isn't how it works. Making a WWII era comic strip with screaming, spitting, fanged asian soldiers is the propaganda the people are meant to believe. It's not the truth. Avatar might as well have painted CGI fangs and grotesque features onto every marine except Sully.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Avatar made humans appear cruel just for the sake of cruelty, without any other driving force to motivate it.

So what's the problem? That's the most accurate description of humans I've ever heard.

 

[DaveC426913]

So what's the problem? That's the most accurate description of humans I've ever heard.

For you to believe that is an accurate description of humanity is for you to believe that is an accurate description of you personally, as an "average" human.

It's naive to look at some stranger's actions and decide there's nothing there to sympathize with.

Those Marines are on Pandora to secure a resource for humanity who is (insert motivation here) running out of power for their airplanes and farm vehicles that the people demand serve them to maintain their quality of life.

Or whatever. The point is, ultimately, it comes back to you/me as individuals. To damn humanity is to damn yourself.

 

[leroyjenkens]

For you to believe that is an accurate description of humanity is for you to believe that is an accurate description of you personally, as an "average" human.

Yet the marines in Avatar represent all of humanity?
Evil humans in real life can't represent all of humanity, but evil humans in a movie can?

 

[Huckleberry]

Yet the marines in Avatar represent all of humanity?
Evil humans in real life can't represent all of humanity, but evil humans in a movie can?

Those are the same questions I have. It's incredulous that those marines represent the entirity of humanity. Heck, they don't even represent real marines. Evil humans in real life don't embody all of what it means to be human. A film that wants us to believe that loses its suspension of disbelief.

 

[MotoH]

Military personnel are always portrayed as bad guys. If only there was mandatory service, peoples opinions would change.

 

[turbo]

Military personnel are always portrayed as bad guys. If only there was mandatory service, peoples opinions would change.

Ever watched Saving Private Ryan? Guess not.

 

[MotoH]

Ever watched Saving Private Ryan? Guess not.

The Germans were bad. 'nough said.

I guarantee you the people who portray the military as bad people do not watch shows like that. For every band of brothers episode, there are 15 leftist movies that portray the military as a bunch of evil self serving cocks.

 

[leroyjenkens]

Those are the same questions I have. It's incredulous that those marines represent the entirity of humanity. Heck, they don't even represent real marines. Evil humans in real life don't embody all of what it means to be human. A film that wants us to believe that loses its suspension of disbelief.

What makes you think the film wants us to believe that? It's the fans who are saying it and that's who I'm addressing.

The Germans were bad. 'nough said.

I guarantee you the people who portray the military as bad people do not watch shows like that. For every band of brothers episode, there are 15 leftist movies that portray the military as a bunch of evil self serving cocks.

I can think of more movies where the military are good guys than I can of movies where they're bad guys.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The notion of soldiers as villains stems from real events like the My Lai Massacre.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Lai_Massacre

Within this context, we find descriptions of what happens in war, like this

...unrestrained revenge-driven behavior, endless reliving of the guilt such behavior causes and the ruin of good character...

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=376102

 

[Dembadon]

The Germans were bad. 'nough said. ...

Are you saying that they were undeserving of that label? Your statement does not invalidate turbo's post. There are plenty of movies that portray military personnel as heroes; you said that "military personnel are always portrayed as bad guys."

... I guarantee you the people who portray the military as bad people do not watch shows like that. For every band of brothers episode, there are 15 leftist movies that portray the military as a bunch of evil self serving cocks.

Can you name a few, or is this just your opinion?

 

[MotoH]

Avatar (hey look this thread is about avatar!)
Locusts
It Came From Outer Space
The Swarm
The Mist

Ok so it isn't as many as I thought. But there still are a lot.

 

[DaveC426913]

For you to believe that is an accurate description of humanity is for you to believe that is an accurate description of you personally, as an "average" human.

Yet the marines in Avatar represent all of humanity?
Evil humans in real life can't represent all of humanity, but evil humans in a movie can?

I'm afraid I'm not following your train of thought.

You said cruelty for the sake of cruelty is an excellent description of humans. That's a generalization. Is it an excellent desciption of you, as one of those humans?

 

[leroyjenkens]

I'm afraid I'm not following your train of thought.

You said cruelty for the sake of cruelty is an excellent description of humans. That's a generalization. Is it an excellent desciption of you, as one of those humans?

Every person doesn't have to fit the description for it to be accurate.
Huckleberry said they aren't cruel, but you had no problems with that. You're not holding him to the same standard. For what he says to be true, no human could be cruel or else saying humans aren't cruel is just as inaccurate.
You also didn't address the point I was making. Evil humans in a movie represent all of humanity, but evil humans in real life do not. Why?

 

[DaveC426913]

Every person doesn't have to fit the description for it to be accurate.

But it does mean you consider yourself to be above the average.

In fact, very above average. If cruelty is an "excellent" description and an "accurate" description, then there are correspondingly few outliers who do not fit that description (else it would not be an excellent or accurate desciption of humans). You then assign yourself this elite position among the very rare non-cruel humans.

Huckleberry said they aren't cruel, but you had no problems with that. You're not holding him to the same standard.

Of course I am. I'll bet if I asked Huck if we were an average person who is "not cruel", he would say yes. i.e. Huck falls within his own generalization of humanity.

By contrast, you put humanity in a box, but believe you stand outside the box.

You also didn't address the point I was making. Evil humans in a movie represent all of humanity, but evil humans in real life do not. Why?

You were the one who made the generalization that humans (in general) are cruel for the sake of being cruel.

 

[leroyjenkens]

But it does mean you consider yourself to be above the average.

In fact, very above average. If cruelty is an "excellent" description and an "accurate" description, then there are correspondingly few outliers who do not fit that description (else it would not be an excellent or accurate desciption of humans). You then assign yourself this elite position among the very rare non-cruel humans.

So in the lifespan of every human being, only a relatively few number of them have ever acted in a cruel manner in their entire lives?

Of course I am. I'll bet if I asked Huck if we were an average person who is "not cruel", he would say yes. i.e. Huck falls within his own generalization of humanity.

By contrast, you put humanity in a box, but believe you stand outside the box.

Why is he getting a free pass at interrogation?
And where did you get the idea we were talking about the average person? You're holding us to something you made up.

You were the one who made the generalization that humans (in general) are cruel for the sake of being cruel.

But you called me on it without acknowledging the hypocrasy of what Huckleberry was saying. That has nothing to do with my generalization. The hypocrasy exists independent of me.

 

[Lateralus.]

Are you saying that they were undeserving of that label? Your statement does not invalidate turbo's post. There are plenty of movies that portray military personnel as heroes; you said that "military personnel are always portrayed as bad guys."



Can you name a few, or is this just your opinion?

So you have time to post here eh?

 

[jgens]

I said this before, but I would have liked the movie better if it depicted a desperate struggle for existence instead of a black-and-white story about colonialism. Make unobtanium something that humans need to prevent extinction. Make the tree of life something that the no lifeforms on Pandora can survive without, both physically and emotionally. Get a cute girl on the human side and show her suffering and fighting desperately for the survival of the human race. That would have made for a much more exciting and morally ambiguous story. It's a plot that will keep movie-goers philosophizing for a long time after seeing the movie rather than thinking "oh yeah, it's one of those movies".

While this might be nice to make the movie more realistic, I think that it would inevitably convolute the anti-colonial theme that Cameron's trying to convey. For example, there are an astonishing number of people that still support Andrew Jackson's treatment of the American Indians because it was in the interests of the United States' development as a whole. On a more contemporary issue, people still support the American government's decision to intern Japanese Americans during WWII because "all's fair in war." Although issues are rarely as black and white as Cameron depicts them in Avatar, he also has a duty to make sure that his intentions/themes are ardently clear, something which I think that he does a pretty good job doing.